With negotiations beginning over the next 10-year BBC charter, MPs from Nottingham, Leicester, Derby, Stoke-on-Trent and Coventry have joined counterparts in Birmingham in backing the Post’s campaign calling for half of all money raised in this region by the state broadcaster to be reinvested here.

Many have now pledged to raise the issue in Parliament.

For every family paying a licence fee in this region, the BBC spends just £12.40 while it invests £80 in the North, £122 in Wales and £757 in London.

Mark Spencer, Conservative MP for Sherwood in Nottinghamshire, said the Midlands was being “short-changed” – and vowed to take the fight to the BBC.

He said: “Clearly, we have been short-changed – and something needs to be done about it.

“We need to make sure we represent the East Midlands and ensure our voice is heard at the BBC like they do with other parts of the country, like Scotland. But we need to step up our game in the Midlands and make sure our voice is heard.”

He added: “We should celebrate the diversity of this region – from the rolling countryside of Lincolnshire to Derbyshire’s Peak District to the Black Country.

“That is something we should celebrate, rather than highlight our differences, and the BBC should celebrate it too.”

The Midlands – which includes the East and West Midlands, as well as the East of England – accounts for more than a quarter of BBC income through licence fees, and yet little more than two per cent of its expenditure last year.

It is the only BBC region to produce no prime-time television or have no network television studios.

That is despite it being the largest of the broadcaster’s seven regions, with 6.4 million licence fee-payers and a total of 16.2 million – close to the population of the Netherlands.

Coventry South’s Labour MP Jim Cunningham said: “I think it is a disgrace, to say the least. I have been concerned about this for a long time. The majority of the money the BBC spends is in London or the North and the Midlands gets very little.

Graphic about BBC spending

“The Midlands is a wealth generator for this country but we are being treated as a third class region by the BBC. That is wrong by any measure.”

Maggie Throup, the new Conservative MP for Erewash in Derbyshire, added: “We really need to work together as a region on this issue.

“If you look at it from the perspective of the licence fee-payer, people from Erewash are paying just the same as people from other parts of the country, but are not getting the same level of investment.

“We have got fantastic technology around this area – whether it is Jaguar Land Rover, Bombardier, or Rolls-Royce – they do fantastic things and that expertise could go into the media.”

Daytime show Doctors and historic radio soap opera The Archers, are the feathers in the Midlands’ cap when it comes to BBC production in the Midlands, but business and community leaders say that is not enough.

The broadcaster’s expenditure in the Midlands was less than the £89 million the BBC spends on one building – its Broadcasting House headquarters in London – last year.

The BBC Trust has set a target of seeing 50 per cent of network budget spent outside the capital by 2016.

As a result, investment in all UK regions outside the Midlands – Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland, the North and the South – has risen significantly across the past five years. By comparison, expenditure in London has fallen by less than 17 per cent – but it has dropped by more than 35 per cent in the Midlands, according to the Campaign for Regional Broadcasting Midlands (CRBM).

Leicester East MP Keith Vaz

Keith Vaz, Labour MP for Leicester East, said: “There is an astonishing level of under-investment from the BBC in the Midlands and I fully support the campaign to get justice.

“We need to see a fair share invested here for the licence fees we pay here in the Midlands.

“For a broadcaster who believes in the concept of regional and local broadcasting to spend so much of its money in London, and the Greater London area, is not right.

“We need to make sure that we get our fair share for the people of Leicestershire and the whole Midlands.”

Stoke-on-Trent South MP Rob Flello pledged to oppose the renewal of the BBC’s 10-year charter unless demonstrable progress was made.

He said: “It’s quite staggering that the Midlands loses out in terms of the level of investment from the BBC.

“I will certainly be demanding parity with other areas and if this is the way the people of the Midlands are treated by the corporation they are in for a rough ride from me during the charter renewal negotiations.”

The MPs follow in the footsteps of Prime Minister David Cameron, Mayor of London Boris Johnson and a host of industry figures in criticising present BBC levels of investment.

The state broadcaster has pledged to act, including by shifting its HR arm, the BBC Academy, to Birmingham this year as part of a move which will see 200 more jobs at the Mailbox.

But that will fall well short of the Post’s demand for half of Midland licence fee expenditure to be re-invested in the region – which would bring in close to £400 million a year more than is presently invested.

The campaign to encourage a fairer share of funding from the broadcaster is hotting up with debates starting in Parliament over its next charter.

BBC Director-General Tony Hall

The Post has called on director general Lord Tony Hall, BBC Trust chair Rona Fairhead and BBC England director Peter Salmon to arrest the decline as over 10 years the Midlands would miss out on vital billions.

A BBC spokesman said the broadcaster was bringing 200 new jobs to the Midlands, including moving HR arm the BBC Academy to Birmingham.

“The BBC delivers high quality programmes and services for everyone in the country which works out at £2.80 a week. For that, audiences everywhere can enjoy Peaky Blinders, Poldark, Doctor Who and Sherlock to Strictly and Match of The Day among many other programmes people love.

“We produce programmes and services that reflect the whole region and 78 per cent of people in the Midlands say they approve of the BBC.

“BBC Birmingham remains the home of the world’s most popular radio drama, The Archers, BBC Radio 4’s epic WW1 radio drama Home Front and popular BBC One shows like Doctors, Father Brown, WPC 56 and forthcoming drama The Coroner as well as digital network radio station, BBC Asian Network.

“Audiences in the Midlands also get 14 BBC local radio stations, BBC Midlands Today, BBC East Midlands Today and BBC Look East, as well as weekly current affairs and politics shows and websites delivering local news online.”